Counting Rhythms - How do you do it?
Rhythm never came easy to me! When I started to dive into Latin American music at the age of 14 (mostly works by Ahmed El-Salamouny through my guitar teacher at that time) I was always just kind of winging it, because I thought I could just "feel it".
This was okay up to a certain point, but when I got into more complex cuban and brazilian rhythms I started to notice myself that I should probably be a more strategic about this. My class at university "South American Folklore" was not particularly helpful as I had a Cuban teacher who refused to write down all the different rhythms she was presenting, as she was obviously feeling it more than the small bavarian boy who might know how to dance a waltz but never heard anything about a Makumba, Bembe or Mani. 
So my go-to method for complex rhythms (which still share a common base) is to divide the beat into the smallest common rhythmic value (which in the case of Villa-Lobos Choro here would be the sixteenth note), that way I can pinpoint the exact location of each sixteenth note! Of course, from there on I need to find a way to make it sound musical and not like a mathematical problem!
What is your method when being confronted by a rhythmical maze? And what do you do from "playing it right" to "playing it musically"?
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I'll start this off.
What is your method when being confronted by a rhythmical maze?
I have no method. I'll be honest, if there is a rhythm I am struggling with figuring out in a piece I want to play, probably the first thing I do is go to YT to listen to someone else play it. I know that's not the best thing to do, but it is what I do nonetheless. I do understand Martin's "method" of subdividing it, and that is very logical.
I will also admit that, when I see a score with many difficult rhythms, I will often simply choose not to play that piece.
And what do you do from "playing it right" to "playing it musically"?
I'm not sure I ever do play complex rhythms musically, so I can't really pinpoint anything I do to achieve this. I suppose simply playing a difficult passage for a long time until I'm playing it with ease allows me to make it more musical.
I will say that, when I was a teenager, before playing classical guitar, I had an excellent teacher who really focused on sight-reading with me. I still remember a particular book we worked with for several years that really improved my ability to read rhythms. It was called "Melodic Rhythms for Guitar" (Berklee Press) and seems to be in print still. When I was in college and playing in small ensembles, I noticed that my ability to sight read was quite a bit better than that of the other guitarists in the school, and I credit that book (as well as my teacher, of course).
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Interesting proposal to discuss, Martin! I used to use this same method, exploding the rhythm cell to his smallest part. For me, it works well but I realize that later I have an extra job to make this sounding good and convincent, as a real rhythm and not as a robot playing - telling about me, of course!... ;-)
A few years ago I started another process, with some clear steps:
1) I look for a good reference to listen to, and I listen to til incorporate, til I can reproduce it with voice, or hands and feet.
2) Without the reference (and without guitar), I try to reproduce in a slow tempo just the main portions.
Here I have to say that probably I won't be able to express myself well in English, but I'll try.
The main portions maybe not coincide with the beats, exactly like the video Martin posted. But for me, the important is to get the pulse, even if the pulse does not coincide with the beats. If you can swing or dance or sing or clap the pulse, you have the rhythm foundation.
3) The third step is exactly this: sing or clap the pulse, slowly. If you can play the pulse slowly, with musical meaning (not like a robot) you are able to go to the next step.
4) Put the others figures between the pulse and voilá!, you got the music!
I think the guitar, as a polyphonic instrument, has a big issue to solve: as we can play the melody and the pulse (commonly in the bass line), we lost (or, at least, is very difficult to do) an important possibility: anticipate or posticipate notes and tempos.
In music traditions with a large presence of syncopation, this is very common. Let me show a sample: In the A we have a melody with harmony (extracted from Lamentos do Morro). Probably, the guitarist will do the accompaniment with the rhythmic cells in B, and the soloist will play the melody as in C.
With this, we have a question to solve: the first E in the melody, that is in the first beat of measure 2, is the strong beat, right? And in the accompaniment, the G in the first beat of measure 2 is the strong beat too.
But, when the musicians play like in B and C, we have TWO strong beats in different positions, because our soloist anticipates the note. With two musicians playing it's not a problem, but when you condense these parts into one, you have a problem. The score of Lamentos do Morro is the D, and I marked the part I'm talking about.
Well, I've written too much... =) But it's a very interesting theme to discuss. Thank you for reading!
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Moyses Lopes Olá da Maia, Moyses :) Cool that you live in Caldas da Rainha.
I totally get you. Since the pandemic started I have been learning guitar again and besides the many lessons and repertoire that I learn on tonebase I have gone trough most of the compositions of Garoto. Nosso Chôro and Enigma are the only ones missing (and of course Desvairada will be an eternal challenge for me). I learned Lamentos do Morro during the Christmas holidays. It´s so much fun to play!
I like to slow down, clap the beat and sing the melody or the bass line (any part I am struggling with). When that doesn´t work, I use "Music Speed Changer", a free app for Android. It reads mp3, or wav files and allows you to slow down the tempo without interfering with the pitch.
If I don´t have the music file, I find a good interpretation on youtube that I like and convert it to mp3 using an youtube to mp3 online converter.
That way I can listen to my favourite interpretation at ridiculous slow speed. Like 20 or 30% slower.
https://musicspeedchanger.com/
This really helps to be able to read the sheet and listen to it simultaneously, at my own pace, set loops and go trough it as many times as I want until I can finally sing it and perceive it.
Regarding Chôro and the antecipated notes, I came across this beautiful transcription of Baden Powell´s Valsa de Euridíce (my favourite veersion besides Marcus Tardelli incredible rendition) . From bar 5 he simply says to antecipate the bass in every bar from then on.
Hear it here on spotify.
After that I noticed it happens in many other tunes :)
Eric Phillips I always struggled with reading rhythm. Found the book William Leavitt - Melodic Rhythms For Guitar (Berklee 1969) and will seek to study those exercises. Thanks for the tip!
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